Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

yeah zwan, thefutureembrace, and zeitgeist are all absent from streaming services

zwan really the big tragedy there

i'm really not thrilled with either of the new songs as songs but the arrangements are great, hope i hear something as good as "silvery sometimes" in this environment

hard to think of someone more in need of a solid guiding hand, and also no one I can think of less likely to accept said guidance

corgan getting bent into shape by a decent non-indulgent producer... ugh dare i dream. corgo would probably try to curse the studio afterward though

they actually really should make a record with jmj honestly

you say that about everyone but nevertheless otm

honestly, even just pondering what Oceania could have been like with a tough and sensible producer is mega frustrating

rick rubin did produce the last one so i'd presume he at least managed to provide some guidance especially since the results were well above average for corgan this century

Rubin hasn't produced a great album by himself since....when, exactly?

yeah rubin hasn't had a good track record for a long long time now but he still somehow garners the sort of respect that gets people like billy and kanye to listen to him

black sabbath 13 xp

but also i don't credit anything good about that record to rubin producing necessarily. rubin by many accounts has been a largely hands-off producer for like twenty years now. iirc his great contribution to the last sp record was reducing 16 songs to 8

yes his one innovation lately tends to be saying "shorter is better" to people who are inclined to say otherwise. but even that seems to be very selectively applied.

Sure doesn't seem to say it in reference to his beard but there you go.

lol

Wow, "Cyr" is bad.

Rubin did a great job on Ogilala. My favorite post-2000 BC/SP release.

Still just a year into my decade long sabbatical from SP & BC so I haven’t listened to the new songs. How are the vocals mixed? Dare I ask...

both of his recent solo releases were good

the vocals on these songs are mixed right up front and loud as has been the tradition since... zwan?

These new songs are okay? I think rather hear them call all our Future Embrace than hanging here in this sort of middle zone.

And again, a complaint I have with so much of the recent Pumpkins music - imagine having Jimmy Chamberlain behind the kit in your band and restricting him to.... this. Not that he does a bad job with it, but I want more chances for him to cut loose.

Damn autocorrect, Chamberlin.

xxp Some tradition.... ugh... you'd think BC would just record ONE b-side where he just like drenches his voice in flanger or delay or something. he should make something like Spaced again

how were those Gish "deep dives" on instagram he was doing?

"Tonight, Tonight" came on shuffle and I had two thoughts

1. corgan would be pleased to know that the 30somethings and probably others of today consider them among "the core, the heart music"
2. is it just me or is MCIS mixed quietly and softly on every release? it always stands out on a playlist in this regard. it almost seems like it's done on purpose to keep it as a little hermetic experience. (SD is also a bit quiet but not as much, I don't think)

was it flappy bird who informed me that it's mixed kind of flat bc of all its crazy dynamics? it's the thing that keeps me at a distance from it these days

this is maybe just a me problem but i have no idea how to tell the difference between the original masters and remasters of sp stuff unless it's really dramatic, iirc there's a weird edit on "crestfallen" (or "pug"?) on the adore remaster

yeah they're maybe a titch louder but in general the remasters have been pretty subtle, which is one reason the revamped Machina reissue concept was interesting

tbh that is the only sp news i'm interested in

Mmm the vocals on cyr are mixed too loud. It makes sense since Corgan’s tone is the least generic sound in here but the whole thing sounds cheap somehow.

Simon & Brad: MCIS was intentionally mixed slightly muddy and it's quiet presumably to retain dynamic range--a rarity for a 1995 CD. I also think that Corgan & Flood basically ran out of time: they were still recording songs in August 1995 (there's an internal Virgin promo with some alternate song titles; "Bodies" was "The Rattler"), and by the end of that month they were already off playing Reading and other Euro festivals. They shot the BWBW video at the end of September, so they had roughly ONE MONTH to mix MCIS (and a good chunk of B-sides). Whereas I think Corgan & Vig took 6-8 weeks to mix SD. So I don't think they fucked it up, and they basically got what they wanted (a low-mid focus), but if they had even just another couple weeks, it'd probably sound better.

nice deets. I think it sounds good, I’m here for the low-mid focus.

Been listening to MCIS and AFH all day. I love these songs unreservedly for ever. They’ve been with me so long, makes me feel safe and home more than most else

But even disregarding all that (positive) emotional baggage, they still sound so fucking good.

thanks for the info fb, that all makes a lot of sense. despite my mild misgivings I don't know if I'd be comfortable with changing the sound of MCIS at all

Yeah I agree Brim+Simon, I like the way it sounds a lot, you just need to turn it up relative to most other music. And yeah I don't know what I would change either. You can hear hints of what a modern/more time intensive mix might've come up with if you listen to the bonus stuff on the MCIS/TAFH reissues. the albums themselves don't really sound different, but something like Inside the Dark Globe or the full Pastichio Medley tracks have more teeth to them, more cut. They're also brickwalled iirc, don't remember but they definitely don't have the dynamic range of the primary albums (thank god he didn't change any of that--remember how "Plume" has a scratch vocal take on the reissue because he didn't realize it was wrong? lol)

Oh yeah and "XYU" was called "Spum" until the last minute...you can hear him introduce it at Reading '95 in a sort of jokey high voice... really glad he changed that title....

Ha I always wondered what the hell he was saying in my bootleg of that show.

My “Mellon Collie”:

Jellybelly
Here Is no Why
Cupid De Locke
Muzzle
Porcelina
Where Boys
Bodies
Thirty-Three
1979
Beautiful
By Starlight

(bonus track: We Only Come Out at Night)

no ruby no cred

accurate

i really love the way mcis sounds, one of the best sounding rock albums ever imo. has a lovely warmth to it

I’m getting into an album that I ignored for 25 years, cut me some slack!

I luv how they continued with / expanded on that downtuned modern-rock sound of “Hummer” and “Mayonaise” with tracks like “Jellybelly.”

tbh all of the pre-machina sp records sound great

as i've prob admitted on this thread multiple times i even love the way machina sounds even though it sounds bad

hah, same!!

the mix is so muddy but that overdriven guitar sound where it sounds simultaneously like a synth and a laser... fuckin incredible

(“Ruby” is ok, but kinda plodding?, and in a Pumpkins mode that I don’t dig so much. My least favorite mode is when they get aggro, à la “Geek USA” & “Silverf*ck” — or, on this album, “Ode to No One” & “XYU”)

(but I was a teenage Gish-head who was kinda confused by SD, and stopped buying their albums altogether after Pisces)

'Ruby' is pretty much a prog epic...

Serious q—should I try making it thru the 64 bonus tracks on the Deluxe Edition; or just start with this "Pastichio Medley" I’ve read so much about (today) (on Wikipedia)?

The instrumental gravity demos are tite

you mean the mellon collie deluxe bonus tracks? ehhhh. i would just listen to aeroplane?

brimstead is right that the gravity demos are tight but that's like superfan shit